It's been since Christmas since I've touched this thing.
My oh my how my life has changed. Over the course of those few months, and the changes are just beginning.

My pride has been broken. I'm feeling it as I learn to die to myself and follow a path much bigger and better than me. But not bigger and better in the world's idea, in fact. Some would look and say I'm settling for something much smaller, but I don't hear them anymore.

My dear spiritual mother said that, when we are patient to follow the will of God, the blessings will not stop. And I'm finding her words to be true. I'm blessed in love, from a man and from my consistently wonderful friends. I'm blessed in school, somehow everything is getting done so I can get out. I'm blessed with dreams given by God. and I cannot wait to see what happens after May 7th.

Over the past few months, here is what I've learned:
1. It's more than okay to be slightly wild.
I'm allowed to thrive off of extreme joy in the small. I can dance when I hear a song I love and sing to it at the top of my lungs if I want. I can run through fields. Laugh a childlike full-belly laugh whenever I want. I can be moved to tears by good art. I can take time to show the person standing in front of me that they mean the world to me. Why? Because all of these are but samples of just how much God loves me.

2. Open Up
The past three months of opening up to allow someone in is the hardest and best thing I've ever done. I am one with a lot of walls, and James has had to fight to tear them down. But the result of being known as well as I am, as scary as it is. Has changed me. I'm willing to take the time to be known by others...not to the same extent, but still known. I want to open up to more people because I want them to know the same unconditional love, acceptance, and understanding I know.

3. You choose who you want to be.
There comes a point of release. Whatever everyone is saying about how you should be, where you should go, what you should do. You get to choose whether it matters or not. You get to follow their suggestions or declare yourself free and run straight into who you were created to be.


There's so many more.

Here is the lesson I want to learn, I found this on a blog I follow:

"If you are working relentlessly out of guilt or self-inflicted obligation, stop immediately. If you think maybe you're working relentlessly because of guilt or self-inflicted obligation but aren't quite sure, stop immediately. The actions that fill your days should come out of health, joy, love, peace, and heart. If you've lost your passion, drop everything, and for the love of God: Go find it"

After school. I intend to sit and go through my life. What am I actually passionate about? What am I doing out of guilt or obligation? I don't want to be busy. I want to be fulfilled.

‎.:Truly He taught us to love one another:.

‎"Truly He taught us to love one another; His law is love and His Gospel is peace. Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother, and in His Name all oppression shall cease."

I'm not going to lie, Christmas music drives me crazy. But these lines alone are so powerful, I can't get them out of my head. This is not a "don't buy anything for Christmas" or a "you should feel guilty about all the presents you got, you selfish Americans" post. This is a post of celebration!

Christmas, not December 25th (because December 25th is just another day), but the actual coming of perfect, holy Jesus to come sit with, love, and die for all of us messed up people, is just the beginning of a truth and a powerful celebration that should follow us every day. He came to show there is one gift we all want. One gift we all desperately need-freedom. Freedom from ourselves, freedom from our oppression, freedom from being the oppressors. Freedom from everything and everyone that tells us to stay put, we're powerless and no good can come from us. That is wrong, and that is slavery.

Jesus came to bring us jubilee! He not only broke our chains by dying on the cross, but he gave us the power and the call to break chains for others in his name. Through him, we have a love that surpasses all understanding. Through him, we can look at someone and demand that all spiritual oppression end. Because of Jesus, we have the vision of a better world where there is no slavery, no wars, just love and justice because that is what makes up who HE is. And we have the Scriptures to help us know how to begin to bring that kingdom to this world until he comes and brings it to its fulfillment.

So, beginning today, Christmas day. Let's run through the streets, proclaiming justice, breaking free, breaking chains. Loving so much it hurts us, yelling jubilee until our throats are raw. Anyone who tells us we can't change the world is right, but through the power of the Holy Spirit, you can change little parts of the world. You can do all he has equipped you to do, and that is more than enough.

What have we got to lose?

Linus is right

I won't let commercialism ruin my Christmas

Thanksgiving

Why does Thanksgiving end as soon as you wash the dishes? As soon as we fall into the food coma, we wake up and have moved straight on to the holiday where we get to make a list of all the things we wish we had, and forget about what we are thankful for.

Okay, now that that is out of the way...

Someone said the other day that they didn't think I'd ever get out of Siloam. I take that as a personal challenge.
I have less than six months, and I'm out of here. Where am I going? I don't really know or care to know that answer at the moment. So far, the only plan I can come up with is being a gypsy..but apparently that is not a legitimate answer when someone asks you what you're doing after graduation.

However, I refuse to feel like a failure if what I do immediately after graduation isn't "big" by someone's standards. All I want to do is find people to love and go love them, and the rest just doesn't matter at this point. I find myself just so happy at random moments that have nothing to do with school or work; but are simply because of humans and how ridiculous we can be. We come up with hilariously creative ideas, funny words to describe things, we're nerds about topics we're interested in and call everyone else nerds for liking things we don't. We dance, we hug, we laugh, we make funny faces and act really awkward sometimes.

For so long I chose to be discontent in anything and everything, now I can't imagine being that person, life wasn't fun at all back then; and to all of you who I've known over the years, I'm sorry I didn't take advantage of knowing you and find joy in who you were.

You are beautiful.

There's a kid sitting beside me in the coffee shop. He's obviously an underclassman and he goes to the U of A. His friends are egging him on "Are you still a Christian like you were at the beginning of the semester?" You can see in his eyes he's cornered. He's insecure and he wants to make sure that his answers please those sitting beside him, waiting to judge his answers.

"I don't want to be anything. I hate labels, and that's all Christianity is"

His friends nod with approval. They are pleased, so he is pleased.

Poor, lost boy.

We are all poor, lost boys.


WHY do we feel like we have to hide and keep who we are, who and what we love a secret?

SINCE WHEN is our identity based on two people who, in a few years, you won't remember their names?

HOW can this be a way of life that's appealing to us? Always trying to measure up to every fickle human being around us?

Why can't we just grow up? Stand on a rooftop and yell "THIS IS WHO I AM! Take it or leave it, but I love it because it was worth dying for".

Who you are is beautiful. Who you are is on purpose. Own it.

I'm praying for you, poor lost boy.

Dear Life:

Please keep surprising me, it keeps me on my toes :)

I look forward to the future more and more everyday, but with it...I feel as if I'm finally understanding what it feels like to just be. To rest in the ebb and flow of God working everyday in the most simple, uncomplicated, and quiet ways. Living in the moment is just as important as dreaming big dreams. It's easy for me to hate the present, and try to just push my way to the future (which I know is literally impossible...but I'm speaking figuratively here). So much good is going on all around me-beautiful fall weather, fantastic new friends. I'm letting myself feel things I've never been willing to feel before, and it's scary and wonderful and sometimes I'm struck breathless at just how good life is. Like when I'm laughing so hard I'm in tears because simple conversations get out of hand hilarious, or walking into a building where people take the time to let me know I am loved, or getting to dance and have little girls in the audience think I'm a fairy princess. The fact that I even have a high school diploma and am about to receive a college diploma, which is more than a lot of girls around the world get to have. So much of life is so good.


Sometimes, I feel awkward inhaling because I'm afraid my exhale is going to sound like a toddler's giggle.

This is a beautiful life we get to live. Stop. Look around and love it for what it is right now.

I have been neglecting blogging and journaling entirely for a while. Afraid that, if I write something, then I will be forced to think too much about too many things. But here I go again. I want to document this last year of school, because I think it’s going to be full of a lot of things-good, bad, every beautiful thing in between. Over the past year or so, I’ve been realizing that I don’t have to plan. Life is a collision of events, orchestrated by a God who is much more wise and powerful than I will ever be. Each collision happens to spur you to a place you would not have thought to go for yourself. I have dreams, I have goals. But mostly, I have faith to take each step, big or little, with what little strength I have, knowing that I am being carried.
This weekend, I went on an Unplugged retreat with a church I have been going to for a while. It would take post after post to explain the impact this church has had on me. But this retreat topped it all. I found a home. I heard from the Lord. I was emptied of all the crap that was taking over myself, and filled with joy and peace. But we did something that I never would have thought to do.

We took 2x4s across our shoulders and ran up a steep, curvy hill. It was symbolic of taking up our cross and dying to ourselves. To me, this has usually been an over glorified idea that leads to focusing on ourselves, but this was not the case. Since we were in the mountains of Arkansas, I couldn’t breath because of my allergies to pine trees, so I started out at a disadvantage. They said we could walk or run, but I wanted to feel the spirit push me physically as he’d been pushing me spiritually, so I took off running. I was tired and sweaty, sore and out of breath, my shoulders hurt and I could barely stand when I finished. But that’s nothing compared to what Christ experienced. The cross is not a pretty stained glass window. It’s not a silver charm on a chain hanging around someone’s neck. It’s dirty and sweaty and bloody. It’s a reminder of how it must be God’s will and not ours, even when we are begging him to take the cup from us. It’s a challenge for me to push myself for the sake of the Cross, and that’s a sad part about how I live. But something in me died last weekend so that I could actually remember what it feels to be alive again. And it is Christ carrying the ends of the beams, lifting the burden and keeping me from falling flat on my face.

Lead

me

to

the cross